{"id":7507,"date":"2020-04-21T15:21:50","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T19:21:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/?p=7507"},"modified":"2020-05-20T09:53:12","modified_gmt":"2020-05-20T13:53:12","slug":"the-rakes-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/2020\/04\/21\/the-rakes-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rake&#8217;s Progress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"caption\">The CFA Opera Institute&#8217;s Mainstage production of <i>The Rake&#8217;s Progress<\/i> ran from February 27 through March 1, 2020.<\/p>\n<div id=\"spring20\">\n<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p><script async defer crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&#038;version=v6.0\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>CFA Opera Institute Stages Stravinsky Masterpiece<\/h2>\n<p class=\"by-line gradient\">By Mara Sassoon | Photo by Andrew Brilliant<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"by-line\">Over the course of <em>The Rake\u2019s Progress<\/em>, the audience watches<\/span> a man\u2019s fall into debauchery and madness. The opera\u2019s music is layered with dissonance, its soaring arias punctured with loss and longing, and its morals forced home in an epilogue: \u201cFor idle hands and hearts and minds,\u201d the characters come together to say, \u201cthe Devil finds a work to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/opera\/\">CFA Opera Institute\u2019s<\/a> 2020 production of the Igor Stravinsky masterpiece, which is based on a series of paintings and engravings by William Hogarth, used the Joan &amp; Edgar Booth Theatre\u2019s configuration to cast the audience into Tom Rakewell\u2019s descent. Frenetic line drawings were scrawled on set walls and floors, audience seating was pushed through the proscenium, and actors moved about between three levels. The audience was given no escape from Rakewell\u2019s journey to insanity as\u2014at the encouragement of the sinister Nick Shadow\u2014he swapped an idyllic life with a kindhearted fianc\u00e9e for a stop at a brothel and marriage to a bearded woman. And they sat with him as he paid the price of his indulgence, with white lights spotlighting him on the graffitied floor of his asylum cell.<\/p>\n<p>In the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-scene.com\/2020\/03\/02\/hogarthian-bu-bedlam\/\"><em>Boston Musical Intelligencer<\/em><\/a>, Lee Eiseman called the Opera Institute\u2019s production an \u201ceffective reimagining\u201d of the 1951 work, complimenting it as \u201can advanced workshop show satisfying to discerning patrons.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The CFA Opera Institute&#8217;s Mainstage production of The Rake&#8217;s Progress ran from February 27 through March 1, 2020. CFA Opera Institute Stages Stravinsky Masterpiece By Mara Sassoon | Photo by Andrew Brilliant Over the course of The Rake\u2019s Progress, the audience watches a man\u2019s fall into debauchery and madness. The opera\u2019s music is layered with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14030,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51,48],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14030"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7507"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7959,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7507\/revisions\/7959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}